Medley to invest US$ 17.24 million in hormones and contraceptives
Gazeta Mercantil - 11/26/2007
The hormone market may have one more important competitor in the production next year. Medley Indústria Farmacêutica, a laboratory of national capital and leader in the segment of generic medications, is detailing an investment project for a new plant, with the forecast of beginning its construction in the middle of the next year. The hormone unit, which will also produce contraceptives, will be set up in Sumaré, in the countryside of São Paulo, adjacent to the antibiotics plant of the company, headquartered in Campinas, where it keeps its largest productive unit. "The investment in the new plant may be of nearly R$ 30 million (US$ 17.24 million)", informed this newspaper Medley's CEO Jairo Yamamoto. In the hormone market, the company already distributes and commercializes some products which are the result of partnerships: the contraceptive Mínima, with the pharmaceutical company Blisfarma; and those of hormonal reposition: Activelle, Estrofem, Trisequens and Kliogest, the result of agreements with the Danish laboratory Novo Nordisk. The production of its own products, however, will provide the laboratory more autonomy in this segment as well as better margins. Yamamoto keeps further details of the plan in secret, such as the capacity to be installed. He said, however, that the unit will also shelter the production of the generic contraceptives of the company, a newly-open market for this segment with sales of nearly US$ 600 million in the Country, in 2006. Medley has already filed for the registration of contraceptive medicines with the National Health Surveillance Agency (Anvisa) and the Officer informed that the development of the contraceptive medicines is being out outside Brazil. Nonetheless he also kept the partnerships in this area strictly confidential.